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The Western Roman Empire

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description: Main article:Fall of the Western Roman Empire In the late 4th and 5th centuries the Western Empire entered a critical stage which terminated with the fall of the Western Roman Empire.Under the last of ...
  • Main article:Fall of the Western Roman Empire
    In the late 4th and 5th centuries the Western Empire entered a critical stage which terminated with the fall of the Western Roman Empire.[136] Under the last of the Constantinians and the Valentinian dynasty, Rome lost decisive battles against the Persians and Germanic barbarians: in 363, emperor Julian the Apostate was killed in the Battle of Samarra, against the Persians and the Battle of Adrianople cost the life of emperor Valens (364–378); the victorious Goths were never expelled from the Empire nor assimilated.[137] Theodosius (379–395) gave even more force to the Christian faith; after his death, the Empire was divided into theEastern Roman Empire, ruled by Arcadius and the Western Roman Empire, commanded by Honorius; both were Theodosius' sons.

    The situation became more critical in 408, after the death of Stilicho, a general who tried to reunite the Empire and repel barbarian invasion in the early years of the 5th century. The professional field army collapsed. In 410, the Theodosian dynasty saw the Visigoths sack Rome.[138] During the 5th century, the Western Empire saw a significant reduction of its territory. The Vandals conquered North Africa, theVisigoths claimed Gaul, Hispania was taken by the Suebi, Britain was abandoned by the central government, and the Empire suffered further from the invasions of Attila, chief of the Huns.[139][140][141][142][143][144]

    General Orestes refused to meet the demands of the barbarian "allies" who now formed the army, and tried to expel them from Italy. Unhappy with this, their chieftain Odoacer defeated and killed Orestes, invadedRavenna and dethroned Romulus Augustus, son of Orestes. This event happened in 476, and historians usually take it as the mark of the end of Classical Antiquity and beginning of the Middle Ages.[145][146]

    After some 1200 years of independence and nearly 700 years as a great power, the rule of Rome in the West ended.[147] Various reasons why it ended have been proposed ever since, including loss of Republicanism, moral decay, military tyranny, class war, slavery, economic stagnation, environmental change, disease, the decline of the Roman race, as well as the inevitable ebb and flow that all civilizations experience. At the time many pagans argued Christianity and the decline of traditional Roman religion were responsible, as did some rationalist thinkers of the modern era due to a change from a martial to a more pacifist religion that lessened the size of available soldiers, while Christians such as Saint Augustine argued the sinful nature of Roman society itself was to blame.[148]

    The Eastern Empire had a different fate. It survived for almost 1000 years after the fall of its Western counterpart and became the most stable Christian realm during the Middle Ages. During the 6th century,Justinian briefly reconquered Northern Africa and Italy, but Byzantine possessions in the West were reduced to southern Italy and Sicilywithin a few years after Justinian's death.[149] In the east, partially resulting from the destructive Plague of Justinian, the Byzantines were threatened by the rise of Islam, whose followers rapidly conquered the territories of Syria, Armenia and Egypt during the Byzantine-Arab Wars, and soon presented a direct threat to Constantinople.[150][151] In the following century, the Arabs also captured southern Italy and Sicily.[152] Slavic populations were also able to penetrate deep into the Balkans.

    The Byzantines, however, managed to stop further Islamic expansion into their lands during the 8th century and, beginning in the 9th century, reclaimed parts of the conquered lands.[23][153] In 1000 AD, the Eastern Empire was at its height: Basileios II reconquered Bulgaria and Armenia, culture and trade flourished.[154] However, soon after the expansion was abruptly stopped in 1071 with their defeat in the Battle of Manzikert. The aftermath of this important battle sent the empire into a protracted period of decline. Two decades of internal strife andTurkic invasions ultimately paved the way for Emperor Alexius I Comnenus to send a call for help to the Western Europe kingdoms in 1095.[150]

    The West responded with the Crusades, eventually resulting in the Sack of Constantinople by participants in the Fourth Crusade. The conquest of Constantinople in 1204 fragmented what remained of the Empire into successor states, the ultimate victor being that of Nicaea.[155] After the recapture of Constantinople by Imperial forces, the Empire was little more than a Greek state confined to the Aegean coast. The Roman Empire collapsed when Mehmed II conquered Constantinople on 29 May, 1453.[156]
    • Society

      The imperial city of Rome was the largest urban center of its time, with a population of about one million people (about the size of London in the early 19th century, when London was the largest city in the world), with a low-end estimate of 450,000.[163][164][165]The public spaces in Rome resounded with such a din of hooves and clatter of iron chariotwheels that Julius Caesar had once proposed a ban on chariot traffic during the day. Historical estimates show that around 20 percent of the population under jurisdiction of ancient Rome (25–40%, depending on the standards used, in Roman Italy)[166] lived in innumerable urban centers, with population of 10,000 and more and several military settlements, a very high rate of urbanization by pre-industrial standards. Most of these centers had a forum, temples, and other buildings similar to those in Rome.

      Class structure

      Main articles: Social class in ancient Rome and Status in Roman legal system

      Roman society is largely viewed as hierarchical, with slaves (servi) at the bottom, freedmen (liberti) above them, and free-born citizens (cives) at the top. Free citizens were also divided by class. The broadest, and earliest, division was between the patricians, who could trace their ancestry to one of the 100 Patriarchs at the founding of the city, and the plebeians, who could not. This became less important in the later Republic, as some plebeian families became wealthy and entered politics, and some patrician families fell on hard times. Anyone, patrician or plebeian, who could count a consul as his ancestor was a noble (nobilis); a man who was the first of his family to hold the consulship, such as Marius or Cicero, was known as a novus homo("new man") and ennobled his descendants. Patrician ancestry, however, still conferred considerable prestige, and many religious offices remained restricted to patricians.

      A class division originally based on military service became more important. Membership of these classes was determined periodically by the Censors, according to property. The wealthiest were the Senatorial class, who dominated politics and command of the army. Next came theequestrians (equites, sometimes translated "knights"), originally those who could afford a warhorse, who formed a powerful mercantile class. Several further classes, originally based on what military equipment their members could afford, followed, with the proletarii, citizens who had no property at all, at the bottom. Before the reforms of Marius they were ineligible for military service and are often described as being just above freed slaves in wealth and prestige.

      Voting power in the Republic was dependent on class. Citizens were enrolled in voting "tribes", but the tribes of the richer classes had fewer members than the poorer ones, all the proletarii being enrolled in a single tribe. Voting was done in class order and stopped as soon as most of the tribes had been reached, so the poorer classes were often unable even to cast their votes.

      Women shared some basic rights with their male counterparts, but were not fully regarded as citizens and were thus not allowed to vote or take part in politics. At the same time the limited rights of women gradually were expanded (due to emancipation) and women reached freedom from paterfamilias, gained property rights and even had more juridical rights than their husbands, but still they had no voting rights and were absent from politics.[167]

      Allied foreign cities were often given the Latin Right, an intermediary level between full citizens and foreigners (peregrini), which gave their citizens rights under Roman law and allowed their leading magistrates to become full Roman citizens. While there were varying degrees of Latin rights, the main division was between those cum suffragio ("with vote"; enrolled in a Roman tribe and able to take part in the comitia tributa) and sine suffragio ("without vote"; could not take part in Roman politics). Some of Rome's Italian allies were given full citizenship after the Social War of 91–88 BC, and full Roman citizenship was extended to all free-born men in the Empire byCaracalla in 212.

      Family

      The basic units of Roman society were households and families.[168]Households included the head (usually the father) of the household, pater familias (father of the family), his wife, children, and other relatives. In the upper classes, slaves and servants were also part of the household.[168] The head of the household had great power (patria potestas, "father's power") over those living with him: He could force marriage (usually for money) and divorce, sell his children into slavery, claim his dependents' property as his own, and even had the right to punish or kill family members (though this last right apparently ceased to be exercised after the 1st century BC).[169]

      Patria potestas even extended over adult sons with their own households: A man was not considered a paterfamilias, nor could he truly hold property, while his own father lived.[169][170] During the early period of Rome's history, a daughter, when she married, fell under the control (manus) of the paterfamilias of her husband's household, although by the late Republic this fell out of fashion, as a woman could choose to continue recognizing her father's family as her true family.[171] However, as Romans reckoned descent through the male line, any children she had belonged to her husband's family.[172]

      Little affection was shown for the children of Rome. The mother or an elderly relative often raised both boys and girls. Unwanted children were often sold as slaves. Children might have waited on tables for the family, but they could not have participated in the conversation.

      In noble families a Greek nurse usually taught the children Latin and Greek. Their father taught the boys how to swim and ride, although he sometimes hired a slave to teach them instead. At seven, a boy began his education. Having no school building, classes were held on a rooftop (if dark, the boy had to carry a lantern to school). Wax-covered boards were used because paper, papyrus, and parchment were too expensive—or he could just write in the sand. A loaf of bread to be eaten was also carried.[173]

      Groups of related households formed a family (gens). Families were based on blood ties or adoption, but were also political and economic alliances. Especially during the Roman Republic, some powerful families, or Gentes Maiores, came to dominate political life.

      In ancient Rome, marriage was often regarded more as a financial and political alliance than as a romantic association, especially in the upper classes (see marriage in ancient Rome). Fathers usually began seeking husbands for their daughters when these reached an age between twelve and fourteen. The husband was usually older than the bride. While upper class girls married very young, there is evidence that lower class women often married in their late teens or early 20s.

       

      Education

      Main article: Roman school

       In the early Republic, there were no public schools, so boys were taught to read and write by their parents, or by educated slaves, called paedagogi, usually of Greek origin.[174][175][176] The primary aim of education during this period was to train young men in agriculture, warfare, Roman traditions, and public affairs.[23] Young boys learned much about civic life by accompanying their fathers to religious and political functions, including the Senate for the sons of nobles.[23]The sons of nobles were apprenticed to a prominent political figure at the age of 16, and campaigned with the army from the age of 17 (this system was still in use among some noble families into the imperial era).[23]

      Educational practices were modified after the conquest of the Hellenistic kingdoms in the 3rd century BC and the resulting Greek influence, although it should be noted that Roman educational practices were still much different from Greek ones.[23][177] If their parents could afford it, boys and some girls at the age of 7 were sent to a private school outside the home called a ludus, where a teacher (called a litterator or a magister ludi, and often of Greek origin) taught them basic reading, writing, arithmetic, and sometimes Greek, until the age of 11.[23][176][178]

      Beginning at age 12, students went to secondary schools, where the teacher (now called a grammaticus) taught them about Greek and Roman literature.[23][23] At the age of 16, some students went on to rhetoricschool (where the teacher, usually Greek, was called a rhetor).[23][23]Education at this level prepared students for legal careers, and required that the students memorize the laws of Rome.[23] Pupils went to school every day, except religious festivals and market days. There were also summer holidays.

      Government

      Main articles: Roman Constitution and History of the Roman Constitution
      Initially, Rome was ruled by kings, who were elected from each of Rome's major tribes in turn.[179] The exact nature of the king's power is unc
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